Toward the Western Edge
As the mana dissolved into my blood and flooded every corner of my body, my senses sharpened far beyond the limits of humanity. With each contraction and expansion of my pupils, my vision narrowed and widened in turn.
Crack—
Bones that had been knitting themselves back together shattered once more, only to regenerate again. The muscle fibers slowly mending themselves suffered the same fate.
Suddenly I realized that time itself had slowed to a crawl around me.
A cool breeze brushed pleasantly against my cheek. Long strands of golden hair drifted down in calm streams, and between them scarlet droplets of blood scattered into the air.
I could move my arms and legs. The pain was gone. Yet I remained still, held in place by the mana that came rushing in with the wind.
Even as my flesh slipped free of human form, I felt no fear.
What filled me instead was a liberation so vast it bordered on the unbearable—as if every chain that had ever bound me were falling away at once.
Power surged through every limb. The sense of omnipotence that blanketed my body arrived as pure, intoxicating pleasure.
My awareness of mana swelled until it no longer merely gazed inward but stretched outward into the world. Past the rippling cascade of golden hair, my senses rode the wind and expanded farther still.
The tiny breaths of insects reached my ears with crystalline clarity. The expansion did not stop there. Riding the currents of mana that flowed around me, I began to perceive the movements of far larger living things.
The moment that endlessly stretching domain of sensation finally halted, a faint ripple spread outward—like a single droplet striking a still pond.
“H-hiiiek!”
The first sound that reached me was a human woman’s voice. She was gasping in endless terror, her breaths ragged and broken.
Something enormous pursued the frantically fleeing woman. When I focused my mind upon that presence, its blurred outline sharpened into clarity.
What emerged was a colossal ape.
Its entire body was matted with fur, and it was venting a monumental rage that smashed everything in its path.
King.
The instant the monster’s name rose in my mind, the cloud-like drift of my consciousness settled rapidly, and my hazy vision returned to normal.
I blinked and checked my body. My lengthened nails felt harder than before, and the horns that had sprouted from my head had grown another handspan taller.
Those changes were little different from earlier ones—but what came after was the problem. Beneath the larger, sharper nails, crimson scales had begun to grow.
The scales felt solid; even when I scraped at them with my nails, they refused to come free.
I suspected other changes as well, but there was no way to check them now. And no time, either.
I sprang straight toward a massive tree. There was nothing to grip, nowhere to plant my feet—yet that was no obstacle.
Before my rising body could fall, I thrust out a hand and seized the trunk.
My razor-sharp nails sank easily into the wood, anchoring me. Absolute stability. With nothing but fingers and nails I fixed my entire weight to the tree.
Using it as a foothold, I kicked upward. The kick carried almost no force, yet my body shot skyward at tremendous speed.
When that upward rush began to slow, I kicked off another tree and leapt again. This time I put more strength into it, and my flight grew even faster.
I wove through the tangled canopy, brushing past countless thickets, until I arrived at the campsite where I had been before the fall.
My body settled silently onto the ground. Even after landing, not a single footfall sounded.
Scattered traces of the camp and the lingering aftertaste of mana faintly revealed where my teammates had gone.
Frowning, I sprinted forward. After a short run-up my body lifted and streaked through the air at blistering speed.
Only after clearing countless bushes and branches did I finally alight before the pure-white giant.
Its shoulders heaved with ragged breaths. I stared blankly at the person clutched in King’s hand.
A familiar woman hung limp in its grip.
“Noel…”
A faint breath told me she was still alive. At that moment, as if answering my call, King turned.
Its bright yellow eyes met mine in midair.
In the reflection of those eyes I saw another change.
My pupils had transformed.
Elongated vertically like a slit, they could no longer be called human. They looked little different from the eyes of any monster.
I felt no surprise. I had expected this as well.
“Kieeeek!”
King glared at me, unleashed a savage roar, and swung its fist. Only moments ago that same fist had shattered my body and sent me plummeting beneath the trees.
Watching the incoming punch, I wondered: why had I ever been hit by something so slow?
With a light step I slipped forward; the massive fist grazed past my head by a paper’s breadth. The tail strike that followed was just as easily avoided.
Still holding Noel, King seemed to decide she was in the way. With another rough roar it hurled her aside.
Hands free, it poured a barrage of punches at me. Each heavy fist that struck empty air produced a thunderous boom; when it smashed a thick branch, the very platform beneath us crumbled.
Yet after countless blows, King had not so much as brushed a single hair on my body.
“Kieeeek!”
Perhaps frustration at missing me drove it mad. Still swinging, King tore free the enormous branch that served as the ground itself and brandished it like a weapon.
I called it a branch, but the pathways here were as thick as ordinary tree trunks—thicker, even. Calling the thing King now wielded a log would not have been wrong.
Whoooosh—!
My body, which had been dancing lightly through the air, came to a halt. For a long moment I simply watched the colossal log hurtling toward me.
Then I casually stretched out a hand.
My lengthened nails and the crimson scales beneath them drank in mana and glittered.
Boom—!
A heavy impact traveled through the log as my palm struck it. Yet the shock never shook my body; it simply scattered and vanished.
“Kiiik…?”
King looked down at me with eyes full of bewilderment. I gazed up at it and slowly exhaled.
Fwoosh—
Hot flames mixed with the breath I released. I had guessed as much from the red scales, but the mana that had most reshaped my body was clearly Calvein’s.
“Kieeeeeek!”
King roared savagely. As if denying that it was being overpowered by something so much smaller, it swung the log with wild abandon.
I did not move. Standing in place, I simply raised my hands and caught every blow. King’s heavy strikes were powerful, yet they could not pierce the mana barrier that sheathed my body.
When the endless assault at last quieted, I drew my sword and stepped forward.
I focused every sense upon the tip of the blade. The world around me began to melt away. The trees that filled the surroundings vanished; the cool breeze disappeared without a trace. In the end only I and the giant ape, King, remained.
Kiiing—!
A spinning hum audible only to me filled the empty world. Immediately the mana within my body ignited into flame and raced straight into the sword in my hand.
Fwoosh—!
The moment scarlet fire erupted along the blade that had been shedding only faint starlight, seven burning stars rose above it.
Tssaaaaah—!
The instant the seven stars glittering in midair vanished, King’s right shoulder was sheared clean away, and the vanished world began to return.
“Kieeeek!”
Boom—!
As the severed arm hit the ground, King screamed in agony. It clutched at its right shoulder with its remaining left hand, but instead of red blood, black ash poured from the wound.
I was about to swing the sword once more when I froze, staring blankly at my own hand. The crimson scales that had covered only my fingers now blanketed the entire back of my hand.
In that moment King spun and fled. Black ash swirling through the air filled my vision. To finish it I should have pursued at once—yet I did not.
Kiiing—!
Watching the creature recede, I spun the Mana Circle in my heart at high speed. The flames that began there grew fiercer and spread through my entire body until the heat began to gather in a single point.
Even the mana veil that had protected me faded as I drew every last drop of mana from within myself—perfectly, without the slightest waste.
The gathered mana compressed into a small mass that radiated searing heat. A low breath escaped me, thick with merciless fire, and the plants nearby withered and twisted, unable to endure the temperature.
“Huuu…”
As I drew a deep breath while staring at King, a hazy memory surfaced: the memory of soaring freely while looking down upon the world, of melting everything with the hot flames I exhaled.
Whenever that mountain-like body descended upon the earth, molten lava had erupted, and those who witnessed it had trembled in fear while repeating its name.
The faint memory sealed within the mana traveled backward through time and reached me. The moment the dragon’s recollection of spewing the flames of annihilation was branded into my mind—
I stepped forward and unleashed the scorching fire within.
Kwaaaaaaak—!
Uncompressed flames spread in every direction as if to devour all things, but when I narrowed my mouth slightly the fire compressed into a thin beam.
The red flames became a yellow ray; the yellow ray became a white line; the white line summoned a faint blue light.
The line, so thin it nearly escaped the eye, swallowed everything in its path and engulfed the pure-white giant that had been fleeing in desperation.